Christopher Charles, 63, from the East Grinstead area, has been called to serve as an area seventy for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Elder Charles returned with his wife, Rashida, from the Greece Athens Mission in 2012, where they had been overseeing the work performed by full-time missionaries serving in Greece and Cyprus.
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Serving as a mission president, Elder Charles said he and his wife were always moved when they realised the saying "a person's heart was always where their treasure was" was truly manifested by all parents who sent and supported their sons and daughters on their missions. Those parents willingly sacrificed their treasured children to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, and their hearts were in the mission with their missionaries.
Elder Charles, born in North London, was a convert to the Church. As a young boy, though not formally a part of any organised religion, he always had a firm conviction that God existed and was real. He remembered how, at age eight, he bought a Bible with his own pocket money and felt moved when it fell open to the passage in Matthew relating how the Saviour would come again.
In 1972, he married Rashida. Three years later, they both felt their individual prayers to know truth were answered when they were contacted by missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The missionaries presented the couple with a first discussion, but when they went to leave, Elder Charles asked them to stay and present more discussions to them. Four weeks later, in March 1975, they were baptized into the Church.
As an Area Seventy, Elder Charles's stewardship currently includes ten countries in the Greece Athens, Adriatic North and Adriatic South mission areas. Those called to serve as an Area Seventy are required to give part-time voluntary Church service within their assigned geographic areas while supporting area presidencies in international areas.
Retired after almost forty years in the banking and financial services industry, Elder Charles and his wife feel blessed and ready to continue their service to the Lord.